My experience with Phals outdoors isn't the rain so much as the yucky crap
that starts to build up in the crown. In nature these plants hang from a
branch and the rain and mist wash away the small bugs, sticks, pieces of
leaves and general crud that accumulates in the nice little niche where the
young leaves form.

It's this cesspool that causes the problems.

Now later in the season when we get cool rainy nights that causes other
problems.

I put the vandas (and close relatives outdoors) until they bloom then they
come back indoors to keep the bugs from munching on the blossoms.
Cymbidiums do well outside in the Northern Virginia area too. In fact I was
cleaning them up this weekend and see they are starting to form the numbs
that will become the flowers.

Good growing,
Gene




"OrchidKitty" wrote in message
oups.com...

boothbay wrote:
On my flowerless Phal I have 2 large healthy leaves and another one
appeared recently. Since we are having heat wave here in the east, I put
them out on my patio where it gets all the humidity that this heat wave
brings and maybe 15 minutes of morning sun, the rest is in shaded part
of patio. This morning i noticed on one of the larger leaves a blotch
and another on the other leaf. What gives?

Hi, I'm in the NE too, and I learned the hard way that it's a bad idea
to put out phals for the summer--catts and dendrobiums are great
outdoors for the summer, but not phals. The problems are (1) sunburn,
and (2) crownrot. When it rains (a doozy last night) or when there is a
heavy dew, phals are very likely to get crown rot--lots of moisture in
the crown, no moving air, high humidity, etc. Unless your patio is
covered, you will probably have big problems with crown rot. One summer
when I moved my phals outdoors, and I lost about 40 plant in fairly
short order. I decided then that it was a bad idea to summer them
outdoors. BTW, it didn't seem to matter whether they were in S/H, moss,
or bark--phals just didn't like being outdoors and being exposed to the
elements.